


Not Just Flinching

by cinderadler



Series: In the Woods, Somewhere [3]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dry Humping, Feelings, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Soft Touch, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26165275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderadler/pseuds/cinderadler
Summary: A sequel to 'Two Suits'.Arthur and John take a walk in the woods, thinking about how they got here. Looking for peace amongst the trees, they find the embrace of each other, and a few other things.(Slight retcon of John's origin within the gang)
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith, John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Series: In the Woods, Somewhere [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894354
Kudos: 23





	Not Just Flinching

“Arthur, you got a minute?”

“Sure, what’s up?” Arthur follows John as he walks away from camp. They follow a trodden path through the trees.

“I’m jus’ curious but it’s been playing on my mind since that night out in those suits; what changed?”

“What do you mean what?”

“What made you want to make a move?”

“You kissed me, Marston.” Arthur scoffs, surprised to hear the question. “Coming out of Lagras, an’ I realised that it weren’t as dead as I thought. It-I don’t know—it just felt right. To do something about it.” Arthur hammers his breastbone with his knuckles, coughing once like he’s swallowed a fly. The wrapping also knocks the incredulity out of his voice. “Moving with purpose, and not just flinching.”

“I welcomed it, of course I did! It was just a surprise is all.”

“You’re still bright-eyed enough to be surprised?” Arthur teases John, touching his elbow with his fingers. John plays backs, turning heel as he walks and starts walking backwards to face Arthur at the same time.

“Yeah: forgive me if they’re a little too bright for you, you old foge.”

“Decrepit sounds better.” Arthur chips in.

“Old? Decrepit?” John deliberates for comedic effect, weighing up each choice on his open palms. “Choices, choices...” He flashes a relaxed smile to Arthur before turning back around.

“Choose strong and follow it through. I don’t wanna hear no doubling back, now, cowboy.” Arthur slopes off as John slows down, finding a strange perch on a felled tree. He opens his hand and gesture to his left, offering that John take a seat without using so many words. “Life’s all about choices. The ones we make and one we don’t, and I don’t want to live with not knowing. I’d rather choose and know, even if you felt nothing anymore, than never know. Life’s too short for what if’s, specially in our game. Make of that what you will.”

“I’ll make what I want of that. And I’m glad you chose.” John rests his hand on Arthur’s thigh, to steady himself on the log. “Choosing is easy, it’s living with it is the hard part.” Arthur laughs lightly again, nudging John’s hat brim back with a tap of his fingers. “I hope this is the only hard part.” John whispers, moving Arthur’s hand down his waist and onto John’s crotch as he slides his hand from Arthur’s thigh over the outside of his jean and up to the fly.

“Insatiable, was I?” Arthur croons, a gravelly sigh leaving his lips. John laughs softly, pulling his fingers back.

“You’re right, not here.” John reads between the lines.

“Lets head downstream a stretch, there’s a sweet looking spot not too far a walk from here.” Arthur suggests, leaning forward and tapping the tip of John’s nose with a finger. “I’m sure we won’t be too missed.”

“Depends how much Pearson needs a-hunting doing.” John chirps, standing up and offering his hand to Arthur. The older man accepts with a brief smile, walking with the young cowboy hand in hand for a little while.

“He’s a grown man, he can handle a knife. He can hunt for himself sometime.”

“Or there’s Charles?”

“Charles is a stunning hunter, it has to be said.” Arthur notes, not thinking too much on the comment.

“Stunning at other things I’m sure.” John grumbles with a hint of stroppiness, gripping Arthur’s fingers in his a little tighter.

“That sounds like a disgruntlement, boy. Charles and I is just fine together, now. You’ve got nuthin to worry about. Calm yourself.” Arthur reassures John dryly. “That time’s passed. We see it as something that made us who we are today. A little more worldly.”

“I’m not saying anything more. I think Charles is a good man.”

“He’s a lot more than that, Marston. He’s a seer of the Wilds, he’s got a calmness in him that’s unparalleled. But you’ll see that someday. Spend some time with him hunting, you’ll see.”

“But what if all that time with him makes me fall head over heels for him?” John plays the devil’s advocate, mostly in fun to see Arthur’s reaction.

“Well, then, you do.” Arthur says finely, seeing the truth here are simple for once. “I can’t make you love me. Or whatever this is. It jus’ so happens that we feel the same.”

“You’re right, you can’t. But I do anyway.” John announces as a songbird passes the pair on their walk. Arthur flexes his grip of John’s fingers to tighten them again, holding him safe in the smallest way he knows.

Distractedly, they make their way up to a higher stoop to sit on. Their leg dangle off the edge of a jutting rock, trying to duck out of the sun. It’s blinding. The light scores the water beneath and almost tears the wax off the leather of their chaps.

“Exes aside:” John breaks their shared silence with ease as they settle themselves in each other’s embrace on the peaking rock. John sits within the wrap of Arthur’s arms and legs, both facing the glittering water. “-don’t it feel weird, looking after my boy like we’re not—this?”

“Course it does. But he’s a boy.” Arthur touches John’s hair. “And it’s a big ‘ole world. He’s got his whole life to question and discover it, he shouldn’t have to fight everything like we did. It’s easier for him if he never knew. I get it.” He brushes his knuckles against John’s. “Naturally you’d have to tell Abigail too.”

“Like sure don’t already know, or at least suspect.” John murmurs, taking Arthur’s hand in his own. He turns to face him and watches as the sunlight shallows his cheeks. “Anyway, why is it my job to tell Abigail? Why not ours? You’re in this too!” John playfully knocks Arthur’s arm.

“To be fair to myself here, I did not give her a son, Marston. That’s all on you.” Arthur placates him, tipping his head down to John’s. “And then, if you tell Abigail you might as well tell everyone.”

“What do you want, a party? Are you hinting in your terribly subtle way?” John laughs, gripping his fingers around Arthur’s wrist.

“God no.” Arthur laughs heartily. John thinks he can feel that laugh in his chest. “I’m just saying, or trying to, that I get it. Why we’re keeping quiet.”

“Are we? I thought we been pretty obvious, but maybe that’s just me. Call it biased.”

“Heh, maybe. But, I’m telling you I’m not ashamed, I just don’t want no drama and having to explain myself to people.”

“That sounds a lot like shame to me.” John murmurs, turning himself and lifting his free hand to hold Arthur’s face. “And these people are your friends, Morgan; they’re you’re family. They should understand, if they love you.” He strokes his thumb over Arthur’s cheek. “But we don’t have to if you don’t want to.” John smiles softly, with a weakness that he saves for the dark, mostly.

“Love me? This old scoundrel?”

“You know what I mean, don’t joke it off.” John reprimands his elder.

“I know, I know.” Arthur shucks.

“And it’s ol’ sharpshooter, I’ll have you know. You’re not as bad as you think you are. Arthur Morgan.” John twists back around and rests himself fully against Arthur’s chest. Arthur simply grumbles and shrugs off John’s declaration of trust. He didn’t mean to doubt him, per se, but he didn’t believe that more than he feels for John. Noticing this in himself shakes Arthur, fundamentally. He feels a shiver speed over his skin.

“I always liked you, ever since we first picked you up.” Arthur tells John honestly after a quiet moment.

“Well look where it got you.” John grins openly.

“You’re lucky Dutch or Hosea didn’t shoot you. Trying to steal our stuff while we was sleeping: the cheek of it!” John chuckles fondly.

“Or you, gunslinger. You’d have hit to kill, even back then. You’ve got a dead eye, you can just see perfectly. It’s incredible.” Arthur wants to form a witty retort but doesn’t know what to say. He’s genuinely touched by John’s words. “An’ Hosea a soft touch, he jumped at the chance to be a father again. Teach me wrong, show me how to grow up right.” John reels his hypothetical like it’s the written truth, though it’s not too far off. 

“He wasn’t always like he is now. Dutch brings it out in him, it’s a fierce instinct to protect little things. He wants to give for every life he’s stolen, I think.”

“He tell you that?”

“Not exactly, not in so many words.” Arthur pauses thoughtfully. “I think all my good bits are Hosea’s doing though. Man’s a con artist for the Gods, but his heart’s in the right place. Always. has been.”

“Dead eye. I told you.” John speculates, gesturing grandly. “You can see that in people?”

“It’s just a thought. I do get one or two of ‘em.” John laughs, cherishing Arthur’s brightness in this moment.

John twists himself around sloppily, turning his back to the water below and taking Arthur’s face in both hands. Yearning pulls their lips together, they slip into a deep kiss. John slowly moves to straddle Arthur as they sit there, smuggled amongst the trees less than a mile outside of camp. With a subtle urgency, stifled by their mutually closed mouths, they buck their hips against one another’s. They delight in the feeling of each other getting hard against them, sinking into the mounting pressure of the fabric between them and doing their hardest to ride it out. Sighs and half-moans rise in their throats as their heads fall either side of each others, heaving their fevered breathing in time with the thrust and rocking of their hips. They work up a sweat without taking off a lick of clothing.

Arthur leans his forehead on John’s shoulder, grunting, reaching his hand around to hold John’s hips in place from the waist. He sharply pulls the young buck back by his gun belt, adoring him as he leans back sweatily, looking upon his works. John’s hand reaches for Arthur’s face as he leans back on command, cupping his ear with calloused fingers. They breathe in this pause for a hot, heady moment. The tension in their stomachs is knotting and threatens to make them come in their clothes right then. The stiffness between them, just touching. Arthur has savoured this disorienting moment enough and, with one adept hand, unbuckles John’s belt and flicks his jeans button open smoothly, shoving his jeans down and aside as best he can at their tautness. John maintains his leant-back angle and, feeling it right to do so, uses the hand caressing Arthur’s ear to snake down to his gun belt and unbuckle it, getting it out of the way. He too undoes Arthur’s trousers and teases the fabric apart, unhooking the buttons with a neat, tight pull. They take each other’s hard cocks in hand and try not to choke at the sudden, freeing feeling of each other’s embrace twice over.

Gently at first, they masturbate in tandem, trying to milk this closeness for as long as they can before the need becomes unbeatable. This washes over them quickly with a frustration of desire to see each other happy, and they both speed up and tighten fingers to each other’s tastes. John throw his head back, lip bitten, and tries not to scream. He gasps out instead, his mouth agape at the sun before rolling his head forwards delightedly, watching over Arthur as he climaxes. He remains in awe on the inhale, pressing a chaste kiss to Arthur’s lips on the comedown.

“We should at least kill one rabbit, to make it look like something other than it is.” John murmurs, smiling lazily with his lips nestled in Arthur’s roots. “A dirty little hookup in the woods?” John suggests with a wry tone.

“It started as a walk.” Arthur tries to rewrite the story already told. “And just happened to turn into a dirty little hookup in the woods.” He smirks a little before doing his trousers up and tucking his shirt back in. “I don’t know ‘bout you, but I don’t feel too dirty. I feel just fine.” He stands after John does, helping the hot-headed younger man straighten the back of his shirt and untwist his suspenders.

“I look neater than when we left.” John notes, scuffing some dirt from his sole up to one knee, for the sake of it.

On the slow, deliberately close walk back, Arthur skewers a rabbit with his knife as it runs through a bush. John manages to grab a turkey that he suspects has gotten lost from it’s friends. He pulls a few feathers from it, tucking one inside Arthur’s back pocket as they near camp, before striding off, his prize slung over his slim shoulder. Arthur stops at his tent for a few minutes, setting the rabbit down on the table by his bedside while he writes in his journal. As he leans forward he coughs mightily, fearing he’s breathed something in again, but on coughing out harshly he spits a mouthful of blood over his shoes. He runs the back of his hand over his mouth and thinks nothing of it. Must’ve hit something while out riding this week. He smudges off any flecks of blood that smeared his paper, finishing his thoughts on paper, and tucking his faithful journal back into his satchel. He feels lightheaded from standing up so quickly but walks it off promptly, making a beeline for Pearson’s table, kill in hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think. x
> 
> (Very loosely inspired by "Fortune" by Wye Oak.)


End file.
